


How Many Stars

by ivylovesnarry



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Happy Birthday Snowfright, Reylo - Freeform, cuteness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-02 06:17:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6554335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivylovesnarry/pseuds/ivylovesnarry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Rey counts, and receives desert stars.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Many Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AnonymousMink](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousMink/gifts).



> Happy (early) Birthday Snowfright ! 
> 
> Hope you like this little piece of Reylo to celebrate your quarter of century <3
> 
> Thank you so much Rellie for the beta, your patience and for making me want to write this in the first place <3
> 
> And to everyone else go and read Snow and Rellie's stories, they're amazing.

Rey feels it as soon as the door swings open, making her stop dead in the threshold. Something is different in her room. Something in the air that she can’t quite place. Hesitantly she takes a step inside, eyes already scanning the place, before it hits her. 

The smell.

Something sharp and sweet and… flowery. At once familiar, and yet different from her memories. Fresh and potent, when she remembers it as dry and fleeting.

And it comes from - 

Oh.

The door closes with a quiet snap behind her as Rey, entranced, can do nothing but stare. There on her windowsill, its colorful flowers bathed in D’Qar’s soft afternoon light lays a potted plant. A Desert Star. The very same kind that they’d sell for export at Niima outpost, coming from the jealously guarded oasis of Jakku, that Rey had tried to grow in her AT-AT. Only she couldn’t afford to water it enough to keep it lush. Its flowers had turned to shriveled little things, dry as sand, after a mere few days in the desert atmosphere. Still she’d kept it. It was hers and she had loved it.

This one though is the most beautiful she’s ever seen. Its spindly branches stand straight and tall, each swarming with flowers, soft round corollas the colors of a setting sun, orange and red and yellow, tinged with the merest nuance of pink.

 _Who_ ? she wonders as her hand raises to cup one of the perfect blooms, the petals velvety soft against her roughened skin. The Force flows through her at the contact, a rush of warm desert air, a ghostly echo from another life.

There is no resisting the urge to bury her face in the Desert Star to inhale deeply, petals and branches stroking and scratching her skin in turn, tickling her nose and catching in her hair.

She lingers there a moment, marvelling at the precious gift, before stepping back to give an uneasy look around her. No matter their intention, whoever left the plant here broke into her room. She opens her drawers, looks under her bed and inside the fresher. Nothing is missing, and as far as she can tell nothing has been touched either. It’s possible that the Desert Star was brought by a service droid, she realizes, and a wave of relief floods her at the logical explanation. 

Finally she grabs the flight suit and helmet she’d come for in the first place and makes to leave. As she closes the door, she can’t resist giving a last look at the fiery blooms. Her smile feels soft upon her face as she walks away.

 

She’s off in the air all afternoon with her squadron, rehearsing formations and drills and shooting manoeuvers. All thoughts of the plant far away from her mind until they’re back on the ground and she meets Poe and BB-8 on their way to dinner. 

‘Alright Rey ?’ he asks, almost covered by BB-8’s excited greeting. 

She makes herself smile at them.

‘Fine,’ she says, falling into steps with him. She’s trying to find a way to ask without appearing like she wants him to offer her plants. 

‘You didn’t happen to lose a Desert Star, did you ?’

He looks at her, puzzled. ‘A what ?’

‘It’s a plant,’ she explains quickly, ‘A desert plant. With orange flowers.’

Poe shakes his head, ‘Never seen one, never lost one. Why do you ask ?’

‘I just - I found one in my room’ she says, not surprised when Poe starts laughing. As far as subtlety goes, she could have done better.

‘So you think someone lost their plant in your room, eh ?’ he teases her, his eyebrows raised in a look so suggestive it’s ridiculous.

She shrugs uncomfortably, looking straight in front of her. 

‘It could have been mispla-’

BB-8 cuts her off with the most outrageous series of beeps she’s ever heard.

‘I don’t have a secret admirer!’ Rey exclaims, half choking on her saliva and too loudly in the crowded corridor. She ducks her head at the amused stares that turn her way. Still not used to getting attention, even after one year amongst the Resistance.

‘Maybe it’s from Finn ?’ she asks in a small voice as Poe opens the door of the mess hall.

‘If it is he didn’t tell me. Here, he’s there already, we’ll ask him.’ 

He nods in the direction where Finn is waving at them, identical soft smiles settling on the two men’s faces. Rey averts her eyes.

‘Right’ she says, heading towards the queue without waiting for him.

It turns out Finn isn’t the one who left the plant either. However he’s really keen on the secret admirer hypothesis and doesn’t lose time asking around to find the culprit.

‘Did someone at this table send Rey love flowers ?’ he asks, ‘Secret love flowers? Because I’m telling you, if you hurt this girl you’re gonna have to answer to me!’

‘And to me!’ booms Poe, as if one of them laying it on thick wasn’t enough.

BB-8 adding his own threat to the lot, dome spinning dramatically, finishes to make Rey want to sink into the floor as everyone in hearing range bursts out laughing. She knows she must be bright red with the way her face is burning with embarrassment.

The teasing ends abruptly as a hush falls upon the room. 

The air gets thick. Rey’s hair stands on end on her neck. That’s what happens when three of the most powerful beings in the galaxy enter a room together.

She looks up at the door, where Leia Organa, Luke Skywalker and Kylo Ren are standing. Leia talking quietly to someone on their way out, Luke and Kylo waiting for her.

His eyes fall on Rey.

Her body’s reaction is immediate. Her heart starts beating faster, her breaths shorten and sweat breaks onto her lower back. She tries to ignore it, to calm herself by counting her breaths as she holds the full weight of his gaze.

He’s always looking at her. Rey knows it because she’s always looking at him, too, whenever they’re in the same room. Her eyes attracted to his presence no matter how hard she wants to ignore it.

She attributes her usual adrenaline rush to instinct. He attacked her once. Tortured her. The sensations she experiences close to him are a natural reaction to danger. She feels the same in flight, in battle, every time she brushes death and comes out of it alive and stronger.

She refuses to let it scare her.

‘Maybe the plant was from one of the Skywalkers’ suggests Finn, serious again. Rey breaks eye contact with Kylo to look at her friend. The idea hadn’t even occurred to her. ‘Maybe’ she agrees, ‘I’ll ask Luke tomorrow.’

‘You should be careful though,’ adds Finn, ‘If it comes from the Jedi Killer, it might be poisonous.’

He’s only half joking, and the murmurs of assent going on around them leave Rey uneasy. Still, she tries to keep her tone light as she answers ‘It’s a totally harmless plant, Finn. Besides, he would never do that.’

‘You never know. Oh no, you never know’ he mutters, throwing a dirty look behind Rey’s shoulder. 

‘I know he’s saved my life several times’ she says pointedly, raising her eyebrows.

Finn and her lock eyes for a moment, reiterating silently an argument they’ve had a hundred times already. She’d like to think that nothing is worth fighting with Finn, least of all Kylo Ren, but somehow she can never stay stoic when someone insults him. Not that they’re not right. But they don’t know him the way she does either, have not been in his mind and seen that along with the monster there lies a human being, with fears and hope and light.

For a few seconds the tension is palpable in the air, before Finn winks at her with an apologetic smile on his face. Rey’s whole body relaxes as she smiles back. Lets it go. So that just like that, they’re alright again.

She looks back at her plate, finding herself playing with her food as the conversation goes on around her.

What if Finn is right ? Kylo could have learnt about her old Desert Star by looking inside her mind. And knowing him, it would suit his twisted humour to use this stolen knowledge to give her a present. As for why - Rey’s heart makes a wild jump in her chest.

His eyes are still on her from where he’s moved in the room. An insistent tickling at her nape. She has to prevent herself to turn around and looking for answers on his face, reluctant to attract more attention on either of them. She also hesitates to pick on his thoughts with the Force. He’d take it for an invitation to reciprocate and there are things she never wants him to see in her head. And the same goes the other way; she’s seen enough of it to be sure that she doesn’t want to get lost inside his mind.

Half heartedly, Rey brings a mouthful of food to her mouth.

She’ll just ask Luke in the morning.

 

When she comes back to her room, the flowers are closed, corollas tightly furled upon themselves, heads hanging as if in sleep. The smell has shifted, less heady and more soothing than during the afternoon. It’s easier to count them this way, no petals overlapping each other and making her lose the trail. There are sixty three of them. One for each week since she’s left Jakku, she realizes.

Rey remembers because she’s always liked to count things. For a long time it was practical ; portions, days, pieces. It helped her to survive. To hold on hope.

Lately things have changed. She’s free to count the hills of D’Qar, the tiles in her fresher, the pieces in a citrus fruit. And people. The times Finn can repeat the same word, BB-8’s orange patterns. How many braids sit in Leia’s hair, the number of breathes Luke takes in a minute during meditation. She’d never admit to anyone that she knows the count of freckles on Kylo Ren’s face.

That night Rey dreams of Jakku. 

She’s walking amongst the dunes, her shadow a long, thin strip at her back. Rey notices it doesn’t quite fit her. The sun is blinding, its shine as harsh as any day she’d spent in the desert. Except in this dream the sand is not burning, but pleasantly warm under her bare feet, rolling fine and soft as dust with every steps she takes. A slight breeze cools her skin, just strong enough to tease the hair escaped from her buns. 

Rey is alone but she does not feel lonely. Someone is ahead, waiting for her. She just has to keep on walking. The smell of flowers is everywhere and when she looks around herself to determine its origin, orange petals fill in the tracks of her footsteps, as far as her vision goes.

 

Luke knows what a Desert Star is. He’s a desert child, after all, just like Rey. However he’s not responsible for the one currently sitting on Rey’s windowsill.

‘But I wish I had thought about it’ he tells her with a smile, and Rey counts the crinkles at the corners of his eyes, ‘It’s a very nice gift.’

Kylo huffs from where he’s already kneeling, hands on his laps and eyes closed. Thick fog surrounds him, blurring his usually stark figure in shades of grey. His face thin and pale in the weak dawn light.

Rey looks at him from the corner of her eye as she and Luke close the triangle, sitting cross-legged on either side of him. She wants to ask Kylo about the plant but already his mind is quiet, his breathing deep as his body relaxes in its stance. 

She never kneels to meditate. The pain it generates angers her. It amazes her that Kylo, whose propensity for rage appears limitless, can just let the pain slide away. She would tease him about it except that she has discovered her own rage can be just as devastating, and it’s not a laughing matter. 

Taking a deep breath she tries to get past the biting cold of the smog around her and empty her mind. Lets her awareness of Luke and Kylo’s presence connect her to the Force all around and inside her.

 _There is no emotion, there is peace._

Those are the words Luke likes to repeat, on occasions when Rey’s mind keeps wandering like today. Every time he utters them her eyes roll under her closed lids. She knows Kylo’s do the same. Only he keeps them open, so everyone can see it. 

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

Rey cannot decide which one of them is the more childish for it but it amuses her, this little act of silent rebellion against Luke’s old fashioned teachings. As if either of them could ever be anything less than passionate about life.

Still, she likes the meditation sessions. She’s gotten used to those quiet mornings spent with the two other men, the silence around them only broken by the songs of wind and birds.

Several hours later Rey opens her eyes. Kylo is already gone. Stomping on her disappointment, she says a soft goodbye to Luke and makes her way back to the base. She’ll talk to Leia before Kylo. Keep him for the end, just in case.

The plant is not from Leia either, though she does give Rey a knowing look when she asks her.

‘Whoever gave this to you must really care for you Rey’ she smiles, and Rey feels her entire face go red as she stares into Leia’s kind eyes, looking for answers she’s not sure she’s ready for.

And so Rey -

\- doesn’t ask Kylo. Something, like pride or shyness or irritation, holding her back. Instead she watches him during the next few days, even more than usual, trying to find something different in the way he behaves or looks at her. But if he’s hiding something from her he does it well, as quiet and sarcastic as ever. In the end she decides that she’d rather not know, uneasy at the idea that the Desert Star could have come from a stranger, but not ready to hear Kylo tell her it wasn’t from him either. And that’s all she’s ready to concede.

 

Nine days laters, and Rey gets an impression of déjà vu as she enters her room and the air feels strangely different. The smell spicier that when she left that morning. She looks towards her Desert Star and is stunned to see it flanked by another one. It’s a bit smaller, an even rarer variety with flowers of vibrant blue and purple and dark red. As Rey approaches she can smell that their scent is different too, sharper, less cloying. The petals are just as soft when she traces them with a trembling finger.

There is a part of her that can’t believe it. That someone would give her something so beautiful, not only once, but _twice_. As if she was special enough to deserve this. She doesn’t wait to count the flowers, the process a bit difficult when the corollas are open but she helps herself with her fingers, her touch guiding her from stem to stem.

There are thirty-one of them, and this number could mean anything but Rey always counts everything and she knows that Kylo has been on the base for thirty one weeks today. She pets the flowers softly as she tries to calm her racing heart, taking deep breath after deep breath of flowery air.

It does not mean it’s him. 

It could be a coincidence, or even a joke, or - but who would do this kind of joke to her, apart from Finn or Poe and she knows it’s not them. Who knows that she counts and that she likes desert flowers and who would find it strangely funny to apologize for sneaking inside her head by using the knowledge they’d stolen from it in the first place ?

A choked laugh comes out of her mouth. Maybe she should be angry at him. He would deserve it for violating her privacy. But she can’t, doesn’t even want to and instead, something warm and tender unfurls inside her chest.

She moves both Desert Stars a bit until she’s satisfied with the way the light falls upon them through the window, and then she leaves her room.

She catches sight of Kylo as she steps outside. He’s already heading towards their afternoon lesson and she has to break into a slight run to catch up with him, feet slipping on the wet grass as she takes a shortcut between paths.

‘Guess what ?’ she asks as she falls into step with him, trying to catch her breath.

He gives her a sidelong look that has her heart racing anew. She wonders for the thousandth time what he sees when he looks at her - if he knows her face as well as she knows his.

‘No.’ he says, dragging the word out.

She doesn’t take umbrage. He never tries to guess.

‘I got another present,’ she tells him innocently.

‘Did you’ he offers, his voice flat and disinterested.

He won’t tell her, she realizes. He doesn’t want her to call him upon his gift.

If it is even him. Doubt engulfs her as she scrutinizes his calm expression, the way he looks clearly unaffected by her mentioning the plants.

She tries again.

‘I just wish I knew who to thank. It’s an amazing gift you know.’

There. It gets a reaction out of him and he stops walking, turning to stare down at her. His eyes a shade between brown and green in the afternoon light.

‘Is it ?’ he asks softly. 

Rey can barely breathe under the intensity of his gaze.

It _was_ him. 

It has to be, because he’s the only one who looks at her like that. Like she is unique and special and fascinating.

She wants to tell him she knows. To thank him, to tease him for being so secret, maybe bitch at him a bit for rifling inside her mind because no matter his good intentions it is not alright. But. She’s grateful, and strangely touched, and that’s what she needs to convey to him right now.

She smiles at him.

‘Yes. I’ve never gotten anything so beautiful.’

Kylo’s face lights up. It’s so subtle she would miss it if she wasn’t staring at him so intently, but it’s there and she was the one to cause it.

‘Just enjoy it then. That’s what gifts are for.’

She nods. ‘I suppose. I just wonder why, you know ? It’s not my birthday or anything.’

He bites the inside of his cheek. It gives a funny shape to his mouth - almost like a pout. And then he’s smirking and Rey braces herself for the bad joke coming her way.

‘Maybe someone thought you needed more friends’

She chokes on her laughter, half surprised and half offended. She can’t believe he just said that. Doesn’t want to acknowledge that something in it hurts. 

‘So I should become friends with plants ?’ she asks dryly, putting humour in her tone even though she wants to tell him it’s ridiculous. That plants don’t make good friends and she would know because she had tried and it had never worked.

But he sees right through her, his eyes pinning her in place. Rey feels naked under his gaze, can barely stand the knowledge it carries. The empathy. She averts her eyes.

‘You still feel lonely sometimes,’ he says slowly but bluntly. His words pass through her like a freezing wind.

‘Don’t you ?’ she asks, knowing the answer already. His chest swells with his sharp intake of breath. Rey readies herself for a snide retort but he only exhales slowly, and when he talks his voice is low and soothing, not angry.

‘Maybe someone just wanted you to know that… They’re there for you. That you’re not alone anymore.’

Rey closes her eyes. She thinks about leaning forward to rest her head against his chest, breathe in his warmth and power and open herself to all the things she feels about him for which she has no names. But she doesn’t know how to, isn’t even sure she is ready for it or if that’s what she wants.

She half wishes he would take the decision for her. Close the gap between them and take her into his arms. But it’s not who he is, not how they work and so he stays still, the weight of his gaze a caress upon Rey's face. And it’s enough. For now it’s enough.

They start walking again.

She counts thirty one steps before she bumps her shoulder lightly against Kylo’s.

‘You’re right,’ she says, ‘We’re not alone anymore.’

**Author's Note:**

> Desert Stars do exist but look nothing like those in this story. I just liked their name.
> 
> Thanks for reading !
> 
> Comments are loved :-)


End file.
